Muscle wood (blue beech)

[Blaflair2]

Had anyone ever tried making a bow from it? And pics? There's tons of it at work. But I'm just wondering about the (muscles) or long lumps , any ideas?

[Joec123able]

Muscle wood is also known as American hornbeam I've seen a lot of bows made out of it but haven't tryed it my self yet

[Badly Bent]

Three attempts with muscle wood here, one success. First one I made is actually a good shooter that I gave to one of my brothers a couple years ago. I tillered it to around 52# @ 27" shot it some and gave it to him when we were on a weekend hunt. He pulled it back to 29" and started shooting , made me flinch standing next to him but it took it just fine and ripped some arrows at that long draw and went right back to laying straight after unstringing. That impressed me enough to try a couple more which both failed. Sorry but no pics of any of them.

[H Rhodes]

I am curious about hornbeam as well.  In fact, I started an interesting sapling bow made of hornbeam today.  I have never worked with it before.  Just got it roughed out.  It seems to be very dense wood.

[Blaflair2]

Ill prolly end up cutting some and giving it a whirl.

[blackhawk]

http://leatherwall.bowsite.com/tf/lw/thread2.cfm?forum=23&threadid=220648&messages=50&CATEGORY=4

[H Rhodes]

That's a cool looking bow Blackhawk.   I am working on one now that has a little snakey bend right about where the arrow pass will be.  I am hoping it works out.   Did you heat treat yours?

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

These deer were both killed with a Musclewood bow. Sorry I don't have better pictures of the bow, but I do still have the piece.  Not one of my best bows ever, but it was heavy and chunked an arrow hard just the same.  You just gotta find one that has as flat of back as possible.

[blackhawk]

Yeah Howard ...it was tempered....n I agree with Ryan...try to find one with a flat as possible back...bescuse those narrow high ridges will take all the tension and can crack there even if it is a strong wood....I've been meaning to make another one sometime...mines since been retired and had a good life with a lot of shots thru it...other than the appearances of the muscles it is dead similar to hhb...if it wasn't so gnarly and easier to find clean straight pieces without too much crazy ridges it would be right at the top of the whitewood class along with hhb in my book...

[H Rhodes]

Thanks fellows.  I think I may not shoot for too much weight on this one, since it is pretty severely crowned, being maybe 3" diameter at the fat end.  Thanks for the input.